Jan Mertens LL.M. (Auckland)

Jan Mertens was a graduate research assistant at the Alexander von Humboldt Chair of Comparative Constitutionalism at the University of Göttingen from 2017 to 2018. He is a Ph.D. Student at the Faculty of Law in Göttingen.

After studying law at the University of Göttingen and at The National University of Ireland, Galway, he graduated with his first state examination and subsequently obtained a Master’s degree with first class honours at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). In his Master thesis, he explored salary caps in sports and their legitimacy under New Zealand’s antitrust law.

After returning to Germany, he worked as a graduate research assistant at the Institute for General Theory of State and Political Sciences in Göttingen (Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Werner Heun) and concerned himself with constitutional law and constitutional theory. During this time, he gave lectures to law students and was elected doctoral students’ representative at the "Göttinger Graduiertenschule Gesellschaftswissenschaften (GGG)" (Göttingen Graduate School).

Research Interests

Sports and antitrust law
Public Law
Constitutional law, especially basic rights
Proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court